The Easter Egg Fleet, American ship camouflage in WWI by Aryeh Wetherhorn

The Easter Egg Fleet, American ship camouflage in WWI by Aryeh Wetherhorn

I saw this listing in a post thread a month or so back about new books for fall & Christmas season. I pre-ordered it right away. My copy arrived yesterday. This is a 341 page softcover book which covers American camouflage practices during the Great War.

Contents:
The Lusitania is torpedoed
Submarines
Brief introduction to International Law
Anti-submarine Warfare
Concealment & Confusion
The US goes to war
Convoys
[Camouflage Design]Process
Artists
Reference
* N-series patterns
* T-series patterns
Bibliogrphy
* Books
* Magazines
* Newspapers
Index
* Unknown patterns
* By ship name
* By pattern number

The first 7 chapeters are a cursory discussion of submarines, submarine warfare in WWI, and anti-submarine afforts. There are other, more complete references. This is basic reading for someone who's interests are in camouflage and not so much the warfighting aspects.

Chapters 8 and 9 discuss the history, artists, design methodology and application of camouflage to the fleet. Again, the US aspect is addressed, but the influences of Norman Wilkerson on RN practices and as they were carried to the States is addressed. Interesting that the RN was reluctant to proceed with naval camouflage after the Gallipoli disaster. Churchill, the First Sea Lord was a proponent of camouflage, but after he resigned following Gallipoli naval camouflage was placed on the back burner. Ship camouflage was deemed important to the merchant fleet and insurers offered a discount for ships painted in approved measures. Similar effects were seen in the US. Warship camouflage grew out of the successes seen by the merchant fleet. It is also important to note that US warships assigned to the Home Fleet were camouflaged by RN practices and their patterns and colors are not directly referenced in this book.

Chapter 10 - References is the meat of the book. There are over 250 pages of camouflage diagrams for many classes of American merchant and naval ships. Many are in color, but even the B&W ones have color call outs. These diagrams are cleaned up versions of the NARA camouflage holdings which I have seen in person at NARA College Park. Blues, mauves, yellow, green, pink, in addition to boring black and white. They are similar to what Ron Smith was researching and publishing previously. The diagrams are worth the price of the book.

The cross reference indices help identify individual ship applications.

This is a jumping off point for a researcher in the UK to document the RN patterns and colors applied to US warships during WWI. Who would like to spend a few months at the IWM or Kew? ( I would, but ...)

Recommended

ISBN 978-965-92747-0-3